FO + failure Friday: finished is better than perfect

an overview of this week's progress

So. It appears that I am supposed to be done both secondary research and experiment planning by now.

And I would really, really like to say that I am.

But I'm not, although I've done a veritable tonne of trying to work out logistics instead of sleeping. Which, incidentally, has drained me of energy to do proper research. It's a vicious cycle of strange, misguided perfectionism.

I'm not going to bore you with long-winded excuses, because quite frankly it doesn't matter why things are slow, just that they are. In any case, however, I will say that I am currently still just a mess in general. I've been pretty fatigued lately, and I'm pretty much completely nocturnal right now -- and that definitely has an effect on my performance. In the coming weeks, I'm obviously going to try to avoid procrastinating, but more specifically, to try to get my body to function a little better:

• go outside more; the sun is important to circadian rhythm regulation

• tidy up my workspace; it's currently extremely messy and distracting

• drink. more. water. (also, eat regularly scheduled meals.)

That's obviously a bit more lifestyle/self-care than physics, but a) the ability to do physics depends on my body's ability to function (if I can't see or am busy dry-heaving, I'm not doing physics); and b) if I don't say it out loud (or write it down), I probably won't commit to it.

Honestly, I'm not happy about being a bit behind right now, but it's also not really the end of the world. I don't currently have a good idea of when packages will arrive, but the general idea is that I still have a little while, and there's no harm in doing some more reading while I wait. I think I have enough knowledge to fill a nice 10-minute video, but I'd still like to research a bit more for my own edification.

I'm going to try to get write-ups for some preliminary experimental design up tomorrow or Sunday. Preliminary research should go up tonight. Right now, though, I will say this again, primarily for myself: finished is better than perfect. At some point, I have to decide to be happy with some imperfect research and imperfect ideas, because in the absence of initiative, a project at rest will stay at rest.

**none of this is edited, because I have a headache, and I can barely even read the words I'm writing, and I really just need to get this done**